


Why did you do it?

by Vegetableswillhavetheirrevenge



Series: Sam and Jack (AKA: the Jam Fam) [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 13.22, But that doesn't happen in this fic, Coda, I also want Lucifer dead, I do get to use these tags again though:, I just want Sam and Jack to get along okay?, I suck at titles, If anyone has a better idea for a title feel free to suggest it, Jack is an innocent puppy, Sam is an awesome dad, So that he can never come near Jack ever again, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 20:52:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vegetableswillhavetheirrevenge/pseuds/Vegetableswillhavetheirrevenge
Summary: Jack wants to know why Sam left Lucifer behind. Sam doesn't really want to tell him.... But, then again, when has Sam ever let what he wants stop him from doing the right thing?





	Why did you do it?

**Author's Note:**

> So I will get back to Safehouse eventually. I've been annoyed with certain things this season, though, so the current plan is to wait and see how it ends and then figure out how much I want to change. In the meantime, though, this fic came and slapped me in the face a couple of hours ago, demanding to be written, so here we are I guess? Lol. I really hope you like it!

Sam is in the library again. It’s stupid, and he knows it, but he just can’t seem to help himself. It’s been three days since they got out of the Apocalypse World- three days of extra mouths to feed and extra people to house, three days of helping with plans of attack and trying to keep everyone as happy as they possibly can be considering what they all know they’re trying to get back to- and yet…

And yet.

He still can’t seem to stay away.

A lot of the time it’s natural. The folks from the other world aren’t really all that shy about what kinds of things they want to research, and as Sam knows the library best it’s largely fallen on him to guide them in the right direction.

The other times, though, like now, he can’t try to cover it up with some noble goal or research mission. Not when everyone is asleep, as he should be too. It’s like there’s some thread tying him here, though, and so he comes back again and again and again. Not to study. Not to read. Just… to sit.

To sit. And to stare.

This is the fourth night. And it’s not getting any better.

You’d think it would. You’d think he’d feel freer now- Lucifer is in another world. Sam’s not.

But it’s not that easy.

It’s almost like… there’s an _echo_ of the rift, somehow- one only he seems to notice. And he knows it’s entirely possible that he’s just paranoid and imagining things, but he could swear he can _feel_ Lucifer on the other side of it, just _waiting_ for him. _Haunting_ him.

This is the second time Sam has locked Him away.

And Lucifer was never the forgiving sort.

So now he’s back here, staring, and wondering just how many more seconds he has left to brace himself before he’s reunited with the Morningstar once more.

Wondering, also, if the tight dread which has been constricting his chest for the past few days will ever loosen again.

There’s a sound from behind him- a soft rustle of fabric- and Sam is jerked from his thoughts, mask instantly in place as he turns, an offer for assistance already on the tip of his tongue. The mask shifts, though, as he recognises Jack, and that tight feeling is multiplied and enhanced by the guilt and the sense of loss which washes through him whenever he sees the younger man these days.

Jack, for his part, doesn’t react except to simply freeze in place, his own face going blank. He’s been like this ever since they got back- shutting Sam out, closing down whenever the two of them are forced to interact and all but ignoring him otherwise. Sam can’t deny him his resentment, but it still hurts.

The seconds tick by into minutes- the longest Jack has stayed in Sam’s presence when it wasn’t needed- and neither of them move. Then Jack’s eyes flicker- just once- to the spot where the rift had stood.

“What are you doing?”

Sam doesn’t know how to answer. He’s frozen in place, teetering on the edge of _something_ , and he has no clue how on Earth he can possibly fix this.

Eventually, though, he settles on just a quiet “thinking.”

“About my father?”

Sam sees the moment Jack’s eyes track his automatic flinch- sees the moment they harden, and still he can’t say a thing.

The seconds continue to pass. Until…

“Why did you do it?” Jack doesn’t wait for Sam to sort through his response this time, instead taking a couple of short strides into the room, the eyes still fixed on Sam’s face filled with a sense of betrayal Sam knows all too well. “You spent all that time looking for your Mother feeling sad because you never got to know her like Dean did. I thought _you_ would understand. So why?”

There’s a rock in Sam’s throat, hard and unyielding, and it takes almost every ounce of willpower he has to force himself to swallow it down. “Lucifer-” he manages to get out, and it’s all he can do not to turn back and check that the rift isn’t opening up again. “He’s… he’s not- he’s not a good person, Jack. He’s- he’s _dangerous_.”

“You thought _I_ was dangerous, too, but you still gave _me_ a chance. Why didn’t you do the same for him?”

“I-”

The word chokes him, and he’s left staring hopelessly as Jack’s face falls, blue eyes filled with accusations Sam doesn’t even know how to _begin_ to explain away.

Jack steps forward again, until all that separates them is a single table. “He told me, you know- all about the lies people tell about him. About how they blame him for all the things they do wrong, and how they fear him just because the Bible tells them they should. Because it makes things _easier_ for them. He spent almost all of time in that Cage- don’t you think he deserves a chance to prove himself now that he’s free?”

“I-”

“ _Why did you do it?_ ”

There’s no anger in Jack’s voice this time- just honest bewilderment. A child who had the father he finally met ripped away from him by a man he’d thought he could trust, and Sam _knows_ he can’t let this go on. He _owes_ Jack an explanation.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he waves a hand towards the table. “Sit down.”

They sit. And Jack waits, eyes beseeching, as Sam forces his screaming, terrified thoughts into some semblance of order. Then, almost three whole minutes later, Sam tugs over the closest sheet of blank paper he can find (they’re all over the place right now, ready for battle plans to be drawn up in their entirety) and, with shaking hands, etches out a pattern he could draw blindfolded and with both hands tied behind his back. Once he’s finished, he pushes the finished product closer to Jack.

“Do you know what that is?”

Jack watches him for a few seconds longer, completely baffled, before leaning closer to take it in. “No.” He looks back up at Sam. “Should I?”

“That’s High Enochian. The language of the Archangels. It says ‘Morningstar.’” Sam taps his fingers against the hard wood of the table, trying to resist the urge to dig a useless thumb into his palm. “It’s one of Lucifer’s names.”

Jack’s confusion only deepens, that frown which always reminds Sam so sharply of Castiel tugging at his brow. “So?”

“No mortal was ever supposed to be able to comprehend High Enochian, Jack. Not even regular Angels can speak it.”

“So…” Jack’s head tilts marginally to the side- studying him, _analysing_ him- and Sam has to blink when his mind automatically recalls that exact same gesture being turned on him by _another_ form- _so many times_ and over _so many years_. “Why can you write it?”

“Because that word-” ( _Good. His voice is almost entirely steady. He can do this_.) “-was carved into me. More times than I can count. Hundreds at least. Maybe thousands. Maybe more.” A symbol of ownership- a brand Lucifer had taken all too much time and pleasure in re-applying every time he healed Sam fully. “And it wasn’t the only one.”

The frown vanishes, replaced with wide eyes and ever more confusion. “But you don’t-”

“Not here.” Sam swallows, concentrating on keeping his breathing as steady as he can. _He can do this_. “Lucifer was in the Cage for a long time. But he wasn’t _always_ in there. And he wasn’t _always_ alone.”

He can see the moment when it really hits home what he means. Jack flinches back, his gaze darting again and again between those cursed symbols and the man who drew them. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. And, when he finally speaks again, there’s a distinctly strangled edge to it which Sam hoped he’d never have to hear again.

“But… _how?!?_ ”

A few more breaths. He can _do this_.

“This isn’t the first time Lucifer’s been out of the Cage. The last time, I let him out. I didn’t know that was what I was doing, but I did it. And… and people died. A _lot_ of people. The apocalypse from that other world? That was supposed to happen here, too. Lucifer and Michael and their big fight? He was preparing for that, and a _lot_ of people died in the process.”

“Then why didn’t it happen? Why did he stop?”

“He didn’t.” And here Sam lets just the smallest of wry smiles twist at his features. “We stopped him. Me and Dean and Cas. This world’s Bobby. A couple of other friends of ours. We used a hint from Gabriel and we figured out a plan and we stopped it. We put Lucifer back in the Cage, and Michael with him.”

Jack stares at him for several moments before, almost inexorably, his eyes find their way back to that paper.

“But you-”

“The only way to stop him,” Sam says (and if his voice sounds dead and emotionless it’s only because he doesn’t seem to know how to sound anything else right now), “was to put him back in that Cage. And the only way to do that was for His True Vessel to let him possess them, overpower him somehow, and _drag_ himin.” He can’t look at Jack as he says what comes next. He _can’t_. Instead, he lets his gaze get pulled once more back to that same empty patch of air which was his reason for being here in the first place. When he speaks, he thinks it’s probably a miracle even _he_ can hear the words. God only knows how _Jack_ manages to pick them out.

“Guess who was born with the winning lottery ticket.”

It’s silent for so long that Sam could almost fool himself into thinking he’d imagined the whole encounter- that he’d fallen asleep sometime before that simple shift of clothing caught his ear, and this was all some twisted fantasy he’d dreamt up to try and cope with all that he knows he’s put Jack through over the past few days. The wood is cool under his palms, though, and the chair is solid against his back, and he _knows_ (with as much certainty as he’s ever _really_ been able to muster over the past several years) that this is _real._

When he finally gathers up the courage to look at Jack once more (which takes _far_ longer than it really should, because he’s just _that_ pathetic), he almost has to look away again almost instantly. All of the simmering resentment of the past few days is gone, and all that’s been left behind is that same broken boy who had been thrust into their lives all those months ago- lost and hopeless and filled with all that pain and anguish it was _supposed_ to be Sam’s duty to _lift_.

Instead he’d just burdened Jack with even more of it.

Not for the first time, he wonders whether everyone would’ve been happier if he’d just let Lucifer come back after all. If _he_ should have been the one to stay behind instead, if he was that desperate to be separated from Him.

At least then Jack would have been able to revel in the illusion of happiness and family Lucifer had been spinning for just a little while longer.

“I’m sorry.” He stands up, his hands hanging uselessly by his side and his brain buzzing with the knowledge that that expression was all _his fault_. “I shouldn’t have told you anything. I’m sorry.”

He’s out of the library and almost halfway back to his room when surprisingly strong arms suddenly stop him short ( _and God, how out of it was he that he hadn’t even heard them coming?_ ), wrapping around him tightly from behind for five long seconds which stretch away into an eternity. When he’s finally released, it’s with a numb sort of blankness that he turns around, taking in the sheen of not-yet-tears, the clenched jaw and the determined shoulders.

“ _I’m_ sorry,” Jack says.

\---

The next morning, while everyone else is off finishing up breakfast, Sam is in the library again, the not-rift to his left and a book on ‘angelic energy’ open at his fingertips. He’s just flipping past a page on theorised uses for extracted Grace when his attention is caught by the scraping of chair legs against the floor. He looks up in time to see Jack sit down opposite, a book of his own clutched in one hand. The younger man sets it down, pulls himself closer in, and fixes Sam with a sure, steady gaze.

“I was right the first time.”

Caught by surprise, Sam yet again has no clue how to respond. “About what?”

“Lucifer _isn’t_ my father,” Jack tells him, without a shadow of a doubt. “But Castiel is. And _so are you_.”

**Author's Note:**

> (For the record, I absolutely do not think Sam was the only one responsible for letting Lucifer out the first time. Nor do I think the credit for putting him back again should be shared quite as much as implied here. But I am not Sam, and Sam is practically self-loathing and self-deprecation personified, so what are you gonna do?)
> 
> If you liked it and have the time/inclination, feel free to leave a comment with some of your thoughts. Whether you leave one or not, however, huge thanks for reading this fic in the first place, and I hope you enjoyed it! ^_^


End file.
